it's funny here

Lately my life has felt like it's set to the tune of many a country-western song.
Like when I look out the window,

I hear Tim McGraw singing, "I'm gonna live where the green grass grows, watch my corn pop up in rows..."
Or,

Joe Diffie sing, "In John Deere green, on a hot summer night, he wrote Billy-Bob loves Charlene in letters 3 foot high, and the whole town said he should have used red but it looked good to Charlene..."

Sometimes I feel like I've left the country and arrived in this new and unusual place. A most unexpected place.
We burn our garbage in a barrel out back.
{Not all of it. Not the recyclables or the hazardous stuff. Or some other stuff too.}
You can laugh.
It's super weird. I'm still trying to figure all of this out. 

And then tonight, Patrick asked if we got any mail today. I stopped for a minute and then realized I don't even check anymore. The mailbox is across the street and I honestly just forget.

I still haven't gotten into a habit of checking since we moved here. Then it hit me. I asked, "does the mail man drive a funny little car?" Patrick laughed and said yes. I remembered a beat up old car pausing for a moment in front of the house this afternoon and I remember pausing myself and wondering why. It wasn't until Patrick asked that I realized that this is our mailman. According to Patrick, his name is Darrell and he's been the mailman here for years. He drives his own beat up little car and wears regular civilian clothes.

People out here are always asking me how I like life "out here in the country". I think it's so funny. I wonder when this will feel like normal to me. Sometimes, on good days, I feel like a vacationer. Like someone totally out of my element, but so much so that it's enjoyable.


We're adjusting. I hope you'll come and visit. I hope I haven't scared you so much that you won't. I know that garbage thing is totally weird.